Since at least the 1990's a genre of television show that has been named "reality TV" has been wildly popular, only gaining popularity in the 2000's.
The concept of "reality TV" can be hard to define exactly, but the key characteristics are that they are mostly unscripted and involve participants or contestants who are just everyday people rather than professional actors or other people who do TV content as a profession. The distinction from a "TV game show" (such as "Wheel of Fortune" or "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?") can sometimes be hard to define clearly, but the unscripted nature of the show is the key. (After all, even game shows are fully scripted even if the answers or actions by the contestants are not known in advance.) And, generally, "reality TV" shows try to depict something from real life, or the lives or (unscripted) actions of people in real-life settings, rather than it all being just a TV play or movie on a stage depicting a fictional place.
The sheer amount of different "reality TV" show concepts makes it even harder to define, as two such shows might have absolutely nothing in common with each other, being vastly different and unique in their setting and idea, and what they are showing. One show might have a group of participants (allegedly) trying to survive on a deserted island, while another show might show a boss going to his own factory disguised as a worker, and a third show might be a talent show where people do musical performances. (While the distinction between a "TV game show" and "reality TV" when it comes to all the different talent shows out there is extremely blurry, it's generally agreed that these shows at least partially overlap the "reality TV" genre.)
Regardless, even though there are literally hundreds if not thousands of different types of "reality TV" shows out there, the one unifying core feature of them all is their mostly unscripted nature. In other words, showing genuine reactions, genuine conversations, genuine actions by everyday people, rather than it being a fully scripted play or movie. Like showing the daily life working at a pawn shop, or how normal people spontaneously interact with each other when isolated on a remote island and given difficult tasks, or the genuine reactions of people when they are given an extremely valuable gift (such as a house renovation or a new car.)
But the thing is... the vast, vast majority, if not all, of those "reality TV" shows are scripted and deceptive to varying degrees. Most of them will show to the viewer a depiction of events that does not correspond to reality, and will go to lengths to try to hide this fact.
In other words, most of these shows are misleading and outright defrauding the viewer, to varying extents. They give an impression of things having happened naturally and spontaneously, or in a particular manner, when in reality it never did, and it's all either scripted, coaxed by the show's staff, or edited in a very deceptive manner to depict something that never happened.
The problem with unscripted spontaneous real life events is that they are boring. Most people live boring lives, and they don't tend to do, say, or encounter interesting things. Most people behave in a "boring" manner, don't get into conflicts, don't say witty ingenious things, don't do things that are special.
Thus, reality TV shows tend to "spice things up" a bit. At the mildest they might coax the participants a bit, or do extremely light editing to make things a bit more interesting (such as cutting "boring" parts out, making two events appear to have happened one directly after the other when in reality there was a considerable amount of time between the two).
At worst, the editing may be extremely egregious, participants may be acting in a partly or completely scripted manner, and even the entire setting might be staged (even though it's supposed to depict some real-life location).
For example, most talent shows, such as "America's Got Talent" (and many of its regional variants), are highly edited and participants often coached or even coaxed into doing something particular. Audience reactions from completely different auditions may be edited in, as well as reactions and even things said by the judges. Participants may be coaxed by the show organizers to behave in a particular manner or do something particular that they would have never done naturally (sometimes to the benefit, sometimes to the detriment of the participant.)
For example, have you ever seen the archetypal clip of a participant first singing in relatively average manner, the head judge stopping the audition (with, of course, edited-in shocked and disappointed reactions by the audience and the contestant) and then asking if the participant could sing something else, and that turns out to be something absolutely brilliant that elicits a standing ovation from the audience? Completely staged. It never happens naturally. The contestant is specifically instructed to do that, and the head judge is fully on it, having agreed in advance to do that little charade.
And that's just one example of those shows. There are even worse ones.
Sometimes when one binge-watches episodes or clips from such a reality-TV show, one doesn't want to believe it's staged or deceptively edited, perhaps because the people in the show are so charismatic and likeable.
Take the show Pawn Stars, for example. It depicts a pawn shop (that actually exists) in Las Vegas named "World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop", and shows all kinds of interesting items that people come to the shop to sell. Sometimes the items are very rare and strange, sometimes they are extremely rare and valuable, sometimes they are fakes. Many of the items are very interesting.
The thing that makes the show so enjoyable to watch are the shop owners and workers, who are extremely charismatic, sympathetic and likeable. They really make you smile with their friendly demeanor, quips, jokes and anecdotes.
So... what exactly is wrong with this show? Sure, when you watch enough of it, maybe a few things are edited, maybe a few shots are acted after the fact and inserted into the scene, maybe the experts are sometimes suspiciously quickly available to appraise and evaluate an item... But surely these edits are just done to keep the pace going and not make the show overtly long?
Well, the problem is that it goes farther than that. Much, much farther.
You see, while the shop proper does actually exist (and its outside facade is often depicted in the show), all the events inside the shop are filmed in a studio stage, not the actual shop. (In fact, the actual shop is much smaller than what is depicted in the show.) And most if not all of the people coming to sell these interesting items are hired to do so, ie. come to the studio to act as a "customer". And most of the items being "sold" there are actually procured by the show creators, and aren't actually owned by the people in the show allegedly selling them to the pawn shop. Most of the bystanders that can be seen in some shots inside the shop are just hired actors.
The shop owners and workers are genuine, at least in the sense that they do own the pawn shop in question and they do work there. However, in the TV show they are all just acting in a studio stage that has been built to look like a pawn shop and isn't actually one.
All of this is, of course, hidden from the viewer as much as possible.
That's how far these TV shows are willing to go to deceive the viewer.
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